LACMA’s Levitated Mass Is Bigger Than the Rock

At times it seems like LACMA’s installation of the sculptor Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass is the work of art itself. Each twist and turn of the 340-ton stone’s delivery has become a public event.

But the estimable William Poundstone has the foresight to explain that we’ve hardly begun to appreciate the size and impact of this work of art. He has pictures of the trench that will hold the rock:

The Rock has been getting all the attention, but there’s another, larger component of Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass. It’s the so-called Slot, the 456-foot long trench that will run beneath theRock. The Slot has been all but invisible during its construction, cordoned behind netting and chain-link fence. […] It appears that Heizer is leveraging the “haunted shack” principle in the Slot. We tend to experience the angles of human constructions as right and true even when they’re not. […] The downward journey through the Slot will likely be experienced as approximately horizontal. This misperception may help “levitate” the Rock, perceptually speaking. The bottom of the Slot will be a great room with maybe ten feet of air between your head and the Rock. Worried about it collapsing in the Big One? It will have 10 feet to accelerate before it crushes you. I know, the engineers swear it can’t happen. The Sublime isn’t about what happens, it’s about what you think might happen.

The New York Times deemed the delivery worthy of a local color piece:

Tom LaBonge, a Los Angeles City Council member, turned to the museum director, Michael Govan, and patted him on the arm. “Good job,” he said.

Mr. LaBonge said the installation was worth the considerable effort and expense that have raised some eyebrows at a time of such austerity. “Look around you, look how this brings out people,” he said. “This will be a big magnet here at L.A.C.M.A.”

The scene on Miracle Mile was reminiscent of the excited and diverse crowd that has come out at night to watch the convoy as it zigged and zagged through the region. There were cameras, baby strollers, folding chairs, politicians and other people of every race and economic class. The was also a surfeit of rock puns: Someone was even playing “We Will Rock You” as the truck passed La Brea Tar Pits.

In Long Beach the other night, people lined the streets and waited for hours to be rewarded by what Alexis Dragony praised as the “extraordinary and flawless maneuver of the rock” making a turn. “We cheered as it negotiated the corner,” she said. “It was truly performance art.”